He's Got Brown Hair Now
by BeingBoring
Summary: Set 18 months after Grave. Buffy and Spike talk about what happened between them in Seeing Red. A lot. R for naughty language and attempted rape discussion.
1. Default Chapter

AUTHOR'S NOTE- This is my first story, and it's all finished. I wanted to see Buffy and Spike really talking about what happened in Seeing Red. And, yeah, I'm Spuffy, but I thought a B/A relationship was a much more realistic option after Season 6. And I know nothing about Central America, so please excuse any geographical errors. DISCLAIMER- I own many lovely shoes and handbags, but I don't own anyone in this story.  
  
Chapter One  
  
The two barmaids were talking about Buffy. Loudly and disparagingly. With total disregard for her location; they didn't seem to care she was only ten metres away, within easy hearing distance when the music volume was so low. "Doesn't quite live up to hype, does she? I mean, who'd a thought she was the cause of so much bloody angst?". It was a familiar accent, but feminine rather than masculine, obviously coming from the British girl.  
  
"Well, all we know is that he doesn't want to see her under any circumstances. Doesn't necessarily make her the Great Cause of Undisclosed Pain. She could just be a boring, banal, stuck-up, scantily clad ditz. Seems more likely at this point.". From the other girl, the American. A pure wannabe Vintage Cordelia. Cordy before she went all quiet and strange. Back when she used to look at Buffy. Even if it was only to find fault with the textural relationship between Buffy's bag and shoes.  
  
I am not, Buffy's interior monologue seethed, scantily clad. She didn't even need to look down and do a quick check to make sure. She'd just been to a funeral, so she was wearing her standard issue mourning outfit. Black dress pants. Black high necked top. A slay- free social event, so she was able to pull out the clean, shiny and pointy black boots, with the square heel to facilitate easy walking through cemeteries. She'd been to a few funerals now. She knew the dress code.  
  
Buffy wondered briefly whether she should have worn anything special for Riley. Brown sweater, maybe. She'd been wearing that when he'd chosen her over the Initiative. Such a nice thing for such a nice boy to do. Certainly not one of those pashmina type things she'd taken to wearing in her freshman college year, when they were first dating. Or maybe yes; they were part of the girl Riley had thought he was falling in love with. Soft, vulnerable. Er, a natural fibre. Buffy's inner monologue sighed. She lacked the talent for turning an accessory into a metaphor for Riley's dream girl Buffy.  
  
She'd never have thought that she'd have the head space for lamenting her lack of mental agility on the day of Riley's funeral. She'd cried at the burial, remembering the way he used to try and make her love him. Depend on him. The way he'd looked at her, with such precision and care. She'd sobbed after speaking with Sam, at the wake in the army mess, because Sam was so lost,and trying to say she was alright, and not to worry, and nothing was as frustrating as watching someone behave like you've behaved, and knowing it ends badly and not being able to stop it. But now she'd left the intense funeral atmosphere, the crying had ended, and Buffy felt, although she was loathe to name it, relief. Because Riley hadn't died on Buffy's watch. Because even if she'd never brought some text books crashing down on his head in the campus book store, there was still a good chance he would have been in this Central American jungle, met that last demon, and hit the jungle floor, throat slashed but still clutching the demon's disembodied head. He'd known the bad stuff was out there before he known Buffy. And the life that had killed him, as a martyr to the anti- demon cause, had been separate to Buffy's life. He hadn't been killed on Buffy's hellmouth. Not like Jenny. Not like Tara.  
  
The drink she'd asked for about 15 minutes earlier was splashed with an ordinary girl's full force onto the table. The English barmaid stared at her for such a length of time that Buffy was about to assure her that yes, she did realise that the barmaid's stare was trying to convey contempt. "I suppose you don't really expect to pay, being the boss's girlfriend and all.". Head tilt, with sneer, as she waited for Buffy's reply. She'd learnt that gesture of somebody. It was enough to incense Buffy. "Free room. Free drinks. Input into staffing decisions. Some of the perks of sleeping with the owner.". Sweet smile, evil undertone, toss of the golden hair. However occasionally, Buffy had attended high school once. Enough to be really well equipped in the in the odd bitch rally. Ok, so the barmaid obviously recognised an empty, thinly veiled threat when she heard one, from the way she offered an "I am so not intimidated" eye roll, before sauntering back to the Bar of Bitching. Buffy's boyfriend wouldn't fire the girl. He wouldn't leave a foreign girl jobless in this remote, demon-y part of the world. He'd spent decades forcing his fangs into arteries, relishing the wet snap a well broken bone can make, but now he was just too caring to fire the bitch girl. He was a champion, after all.  
  
Buffy sipped her drink, screwed up her mouth, then forced herself to swallow. California girls have certain standards for their orange juice, and this thin-as-water but then mysteriously thick and lumpy concoction wasn't up there. It had probably been sabotaged by her fan club behind the bar.  
  
She distracted herself by looking around the room. Buffy hadn't traveled much in her apocalypse heavy existence, but this crowd reminded her of something. She and Willow. Road tripping it in a girly way [oh, she still shuddered at the memory of singing along with the car's CD player as it repeated Eternal Flame over and over again] to San Francisco. Wandering into a smoky coffee shop, because Willow had said it would be a more authentic experience than the clean, welcoming Starbucks next door. The crowd in this bar was the same as at the not-Starbucks place. Young. White. Dreadlocks/pigtails. Polar fleece and tie dye, sometimes all in one garment. A menagerie of accents. German. Irish. Australian. Canadian. The floor littered with padlocked knapsacks. At least three paperback copies of On the Road in plain view.  
  
Backpackers. Backpackers? Why on Earth would backpackers be hanging out in this bar?  
  
She gave up on the orange juice. She gave up on trying to explain the phenomenon surrounding her. She'd buried Riley today. She was going home tomorrow. She was going to bed now. 


	2. Chapter 2

She lay in the double bed of the room one of the bar bitches had [reluctantly, dismissively] shown her to. Compared to the almost ramshackle bar underneath, the room was kinda nice. Comfy. Very clean, high thread count in the sheets. Polished wooden floors. An en suite through the door on the right. Thank you, bathroom overlords.  
  
The monks had done an amazing job with conditioning Buffy into believing that Dawn was her sister. She loved Dawn, had been willing to sacrifice the world for Dawn. Had sacrificed her life for Dawn. But the monks had failed in one respect. Buffy still had an only child's attitude to sharing a bathroom. She resented seeing someone else's towels and discarded clothes and deodorant and conditioner and stuff in her private tiled space. And this was her baby sister, the one she'd been willing to work in fast food for. She'd been worried about it before she'd arrived at this place- a shared bathroom seemed a real likely feature of a spare room above a bar. Stranger's stuff, the water they'd used to wash themselves cooling on the tiles when she stepped onto them, and their hair in the drains and sink... it was gross like macking with a Chaos Demon was gross. Angel had assured her about the en suite, and she should have just trusted him, but still.. you never knew for certain with these things until you were there, right?  
  
Anyway, bed comfy. She rolled on her stomach in order to see out the window. And oh man, the view. Hundreds of greens, yellow sand, primary coloured beach umbrellas, too blue sea. Jungle! How cool was that! And almost endless. The only border she could see was- and this was the kicker, really- the beach, on the right side. Probably what attracted the backpackers, since she was pretty sure they weren't here for their ex- boyfriends demon related deaths. Ok, that was bad. You don't make jokes about people's funerals. Unless you do, Buffy considered, and that was part of the whole finding beauty in death thing because it's all just part of the circle of life stuff that Oprah and the cast of the Lion King seemed to advocate.... Buffy needed sleep. Now. Except... phone within easy reaching distance. Damn it. No excuses. Damn it.  
  
First call was to Dawn. She'd made noises about coming to the funeral, as had Xander and Willow, but their real-life rubber bands had kept them all firmly held in Sunnydale. So she called Dawn. Buffy made the standard enquiries, threats about mass social gatherings and putting the garbage out, and Dawn asked about Riley's funeral and how Sam was, and whether Buffy had bought her a present. She didn't wait for Dawn's final enquiry. "I haven't seen him. He's avoiding me."  
  
"You haven't been looking for either, Buffy.".  
  
The second phone call was less necessary, more pleasurable. To the Hyperion. He answered the phone himself, thank goodness. Avoiding the yucky awkwardness with Cordy or Conner. "I miss you."  
  
Sigh. "I miss you too. I wish I could have been with you today. Held you through it."  
  
"That's ok. There's all those sunlight and Conner and keeping California monster-lite issues to consider. And, um Angel? The few times you met Riley it was all big with the mutual hate and the fisticuffs. And it would have felt..."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Like I was throwing our whole relationship in his face, turning up with you at his funeral. Like confirmation. Yep Riley, you were right. You really were just the in- betweener guy."  
  
Pause. "How's his wife?"  
  
"Destroyed. Distraught. Pretending she's not."  
  
"Oh.". She'd known talking things over with Angel would help. She'd just forgotten how talking things over with Angel involved so few words.  
  
"How does the bar look?"  
  
"Good, I guess. Full. Full of backpackers, actually. What's up with that?" She could practically see his non-concerned shrug. "Dunno. I pretty much let..I pretty much let the bar run itself. So how's the en suite?". Oh yeah. That was a subtle change of subject.  
  
"I haven't seen him. I don't think I will." Her other in-betweener.  
  
"Good. That's how things were organised. Nice to see he can finally follow instructions." A bit of bitterness, a bit of Angelus in that last comment.  
  
How things were organised. Quickly motivated by a five in the freakin' morning phone call from Riley's aunt, a woman Buffy had never met. He was to be buried in the jungle he'd died in, rather than Iowa. The jungle near the beach near the bar that Angel had inherited after killing a Quilux [turned out that some demon races had very strange ways of dividing up the deceased's estate ]. Turned out the world really was a small place, especially the we-know-about-demons/vampires/et al-and-fight-them-on-a- regular-basis world.  
  
Angel happily absorbed the bar's profits, but had only been there once himself. He'd installed a manager in his place. It was convenient, really, the way things had turned out. Not two weeks after killing the Quilux, only four weeks after being dragged out from the bottom of the ocean, a family member had arrived at Angel's hotel. New hair, new soul. Angel couldn't decide which was more disconcerting. He needed, not help, something less than help. Or maybe it was more than help. They were confusing times, it was hard to tell. He needed..anything. Something to distract him, something to do, somewhere to go [he wasn't going back there!], something to kill. He couldnÕt stay with Angel- their demons hated each other, and there was every chance their souls would, too. And Angel knew what he had done to her, to Buffy, in the time directly preceding the soul. And Angel and Buffy were soul mates [did you forget, boy?] so Angel was predisposed to locking him in a room, with no blood, only the nightmares and the guilt that are due after one hundred and something years of mass murder. He could shrivel slowly, never reaching the comfort of dust. But fatherhood had made Angel more pragmatic. He had a bar in a faraway demon infested area that needed running, and a spare, unwanted, hated body which had great experience with both demon killing and alcohol. Angel had seen Cheers and Casablanca. He knew running a bar was its own special kind of purgatory. The familial corpse was relentless and goal orientated. And he couldn't hurt anyone because of a government chip. He shouldn't hurt anyone because of the soul. Let him run the bar. Take two burdens and throw them at each other. Yeah, Angel should have killed him. But, should he kill him as punishment, or to end the punishment? Let him run the bar. If he screwed up, someone could always just stake the bastard.  
  
Buffy knew all this because Angel had told her. It was this whole new thing Buffy and Angel had started doing. Staying in contact. To remind her of what it meant to be sixteen and sick with love. To remind her of what it felt like to feel so much. It was another part of her recovery from the grave. Before she'd died, it had hurt too much, so she'd avoided seeing Angel. Now feeling anything was something to cherish, so she met the pain and regret she associated with Angel. Because pre-death and resurrection Buffy Summers had been all about that pain and regret.  
  
When Angel had told her about his freshly souled visitor, and his solution, she'd been overcome. They were big surprises. Especially the hair part. Relief. One less loose evil canon. But the big thing? That was hope. "So his soul wasn't a curse." "Nope. He asked for it,fought for it,and got it. Three things he's very good at." "So it's permanent." "Yeah, I guess." "So he could be happy and still have it." "Buffy, I don't think he's going to be happy anytime soon. He's all droopy...oh." Angel could be slow sometimes.  
  
So the sire followed his childe's footsteps, and fought for his soul. And he won it. So Buffy could have what she deserved.  
  
So Angel and Buffy were together, with no fear of gypsy's curses and the hard won knowledge that an absence of him did not mean a normal, happy life for her. And the feelings that reminded Buffy that she was alive weren't the pain and regret anymore. She wanted to call it contentment, but it seemed risky. She just smiled a lot instead. Things still weren't perfect. Between them they had a son, a sister, a hell mouth, a hotel and friends and colleagues who were all screwed up in their own special way. But there were those constant, giggly phone calls, almost weekly treks across Southern California to giggle in person. She and Dawn went to LA for Thanksgiving. Angel, Conner and various Hyperion inhabitants came to Sunnydale for Christmas. She could go to him,she could help him, she could look forward to seeing him. They had these vague aims of one day trying to live in the same zip code. There was once a sentence started with, "Well, when we get married...". But not soon. That was ok. After having no Angel for so long, Buffy was going to appreciate the amount of Angel she was getting. She wasn't going to push for a drawer this time.  
  
Buffy woke up. A surprise, since she hadn't realised she was asleep. It must have happened after hanging up with Angel. She threw a worried glance at the telephone, but it was okay. The receiver was replaced, which meant she hadn't fallen asleep while on the phone to Angel. Now, of course. she remembered the good byes and the I-love-yous and the stretching out on the bed...  
  
No more view of the jungle/beach combo from her window. Just the blackness. Nine pm. Wow. She'd slept for hours.  
  
Okay. So now, Buffy was all rested up, all energetic. And stuck in a [okay, nice] room, atop a bar stocked with bitchy staff and bizarre backpackers surrounded by jungle. With no TV. With no little sister to lecture. Without even a hell mouth, damn it. Although...slayer senses are go.. there was something going on around here. Doh. Riley had been here for a reason. The Quilux demon owned the bar here for a reason. Buffy smiled, "Time to slay some reasons". Then Buffy slumped with the relief that no one else was around to hear that terrible quip. She abandoned the funeral outfit. For a long while, hopefully. Crammed stakes into her pocket. Had a moment of glum self reflection based on the realisation that she was the sort of person who traveled with stakes. Down the stairs. Made sure her detractors from earlier saw how awesomely her jeans fit, how "there's no way you could buy something as cool as me in the jungles of Central America" her top was. Out the door. Into the jungle.  
  
**********  
  
The jungle had some really freaky shit. Trouble was, she couldn't tell what was your demonic freaky shit and what was your normal everyday Discovery Channel freaky shit. Like, that almost dinosaur thing. First instinct was to kill it. But was that instinct from more the "reptiles are gross and icky" Buffy or "must protect and/or save the world" Slayer? What if she destroyed an ecosystem or something? And it was so dark and moist. Moisture that felt clingy and dirty on her skin. And the trees and the vines and the other green leafy stuff was everywhere. In her face, disrupting her line of sight, scratching her arms. She hadn't thought the jungle would be so claustrophobic. And oh my gosh, the dinosaur thingy just moved... Ok Buffy. Think Crocodile Hunter. The Crocodile Hunter wouldn't be scared of the big lizard. So neither would the Slayer. Trying to give any credit to that particular thought process distracted Buffy. The Fronma demon was too close, by the time its presence registered. Buffy groaned. Hadn't she already killed this thing tonight? Oh man. It was probably the mate. Out to revenge its loved one's death, destroy the slayer in actions of righteous retribution, yada yada yada. Heartbroken demons were the worst. She always kind of expected them to pause mid-beating and break into elegiac song. This one looked like a Bryan Adams fan. Maybe Mariah. It should have been an easy fight, but it had managed to sneak up on her, and she had a feeling that the jungle was the Fronma's natural habitat [outside hell, at least] and every time Buffy moved she'd get caught up or scratched by or in some way impeded by a tree. Plus, the demon had the whole highly effective revenge motivation thing going on. Basically, it meant that by the time the Fronma's neck snapped Buffy was bruised and scratched everywhere, and her left shoulder wasn't sitting quite right in the socket. She so wasn't ready for the Arom to jump onto her back.  
  
And then it wasn't on her back anymore. It was being held by its throat up against a big gnarly tree trunk, and Spike was bashing it into a painful, kind of squishy death. Buffy leant against another trunk, maneuvering her shoulder against its old wood until it slipped into the proper position. A few minutes after the actual moment of death, the Arom's body was allowed to slide down the trunk onto the canopy floor. 


	3. Chapter 3

It was so dark in the jungle. There was no artificial illumination, so Buffy was limited to examining Spike using the small streaks of moonlight that got past the canopy.  
  
There was no bleach. It was still a distinctive face. The absence of the look-at-me-while-I-preen hair meant even greater cheekbone domination. The clothes remained the same, though the black t- shirt was currently accessorized by Arom guts.  
  
The lips moved, and the face spoke.  
  
"Doesn't almost getting killed strike you as rather a dramatic way of going about getting a man's attention, slayer?"  
  
"I was so not almost getting killed."  
  
"Fine. He was all over your back like that because the two of you were participating in some new demon/slayer mating ritual. Sorry I interupted the tender moment." He turned his back, and began pushing his way through the jungle at a right angle to the direction she'd fought though the jungle from the bar. She followed him.  
  
"Spike, wait up"  
  
"No"  
  
"Spike..stop being a dick."  
  
"I didn't want to see you." He was pissed.  
  
"So that's why you came and found me in the middle of the jungle. That's why you knew exactly where to find me." He'd stopped at that, and she'd thought he was going to turn around and face her, but he just shook his head.  
  
"I know how your mind works." The condescending, assuming ass.  
  
"How's that Spike? I really want to hear this."  
  
"You thought that as soon as you got here, that I'd be underfoot, right? Mooning about and trying to get you to leave Angel and come live out here with me. And you had this whole speech worked out, which I'm not going to paraphrase here because I expect we'll hear the whole thing later tonight anyway. But then I wasn't around, and that pissed you off royally, not only because it ruined your plans of orating on your pet subjects of soulmates and rehabilitation, but also because it messed with your narrow perception of who you think I am, and what your freshman psychology professor told you my behaviour will be. You were frustrated, so you decided to fall back on the one thing you know about me for sure, that I'll always watch your back in a fight. And hey, it worked. Congratulations." Finally he turned to face her again. They'd fought through the dark green to reach a wide path. It was lit on either side by flaming lanterns, each around fifteen metres apart.  
  
"So am I right slayer? Am I?". He was so arrogant and eager, the way he was looking at her. Smirking with his cheeks sucked in, hands in his long coat's pockets, leaning into her personal space. Expectant and patronising.  
  
Well, Buffy thought,it wasn't all concious like that. She kept this to herself, and choose to answer with her best and most trusted weapon- sarcasm."I love it when you tell me how I feel Spike. You're so smart and insightful. Admit it- there's a reason you and Dr Phil have never been seen in a room together." Spike seemed to enjoy this response. His eyebrows lifted, and his mouth was twisting towards a smirk. And then he remembered himself, his proper role tonight. He slouched back into his own space, and pointed up the path, his head slightly lowered.  
  
"This runs between the town and the beach. For the tourists. Follow the lights and you'll be back on the street. Shouldn't have any trouble finding the bar from there." Buffy knew this was true- there were only eight buildings in the whole town.  
  
"Where are you going?"  
  
"Finish patrol. Don't worry slayer, I'll come sit with you later so you can vent all over me. There's first aid stuff behind the bar. Sharon'll get it for you."  
  
"You patrol every night?"  
  
"Part of the deal. Feed and water the clientile, stop them from being eaten."  
  
"Wow, Spike the routine humanitarian. I was wrong. You're less Dr Phil, more Princess Di." His head twitched as if to look at her, but he controlled the impulse. Instead he walked away without a word. 


	4. Chapter 4

It was the same crowd as earlier, only drunker. A few danced in the corner, surrounding the juke box which seemingly hadn't been replenished since 1994.  
  
Buffy had fixed herself up, stopped the bleeding on a few gashes using the supplies that Sharon [the English barmaid] had reluctantly provided. She'd thought about changing her outfit, but then she'd worried about what that would mean, or at least what Spike would perceive it to mean. Or something. Buffy frowned. This wasn't how you act when confronting your ex-... whatever Spike had been.  
  
Maybe this was what was in the slayer handbook Giles had never given her. How to hash things out with the vampire who had tried to kill you, tried to love you, tried to help you, and tried to rape you. In that order. That's how she had always tried to think of him. It helped to reduce Spike to a list of actions, however extraordinary that list was. Buffy knew how she felt about each of his actions. She'd hated that he'd tried to force her. She'd loved the way he used to smooth her eyebrows with his thumbs. She didn't want to think about her feelings towards the whole creature, towards him. There were too many, and none of them agreed. Her eyes swung between inspecting her fingernails and the dancers, and sometimes glancing at the bar, where she expected Spike to appear, having entered the building from some back entrance.  
  
Instead, he came barreling through the front entrance's hinged doors, as if this was a Western and he was looking for the sheriff. He might not have had the platinum hair to attract everyone's attention anymore, but the mucousy axe over his shoulder was doing a pretty good job of drawing eyes. Except for Madonna demanding that they get into the groove, the bar was silent.  
  
The whole place watched Spike stride up to the bar and hand the axe to Sharon, who accepted it with learned composure. She even knew to wait for him to strip of his soiled cloth coat, which she also took. Buffy watched Spike turn from the bar, and spot her at the corner table. He waited for the American girl behind the bar to give him a bottle of beer before he approached her.  
  
She could see him now, using the bar's rudimentary electricity. Central America seemed to agree with him. If she didn't know any better, she'd have sworn he had a tan. It was probably the brown hair- he didn't look like a marble Grecian statue or a rock star or a circus performer anymore. His colouring was so human. He was so like a man.  
  
Actually, at that moment, he was so like a teenage boy, as he threw himself into the chair opposite her, pouted, crossed his arms, and refused to look at her.  
  
"Do you want an apology? Is that why you're here, forcing this?" He was trying for detached boredom, as if she was his mother, about to ground him because she found a bong in his room.  
  
She didn't know the answer, and she didn't like the question, so she chose silence.  
  
"Because, you know, it's what vampires do. They leach blood from humans. They're humanity's predators. So I'm not going to apologise for that." He stuck a cigarette in his mouth, as if to mark the end of the topic.  
  
There was a logic to the argument. Still..."Are you still killing?"  
  
He furrowed his brow."What, demons?"  
  
"I know you're still killing demons, you dick. I just watched you do it. I meant humans."  
  
He was shocked by the question, the accusation. Like he was the preacher's wife and she'd just claimed he was also the local brothel's madam. As if the idea was so unlikely, so offensive.. She continued in the face of his moral outrage,  
  
"Well, according to your logic, shouldn't it be ok for you to still be killing? I mean, you're still one of humanity's predators, aren't you?"  
  
He scowled. "There's still the chip, slayer."  
  
Not in respect to me, she thought, but put no voice to it. Instead, "Spike,you were never competent enough to bite me. You never fed of me."  
  
"Yeah...and?"  
  
She had to know what this soul meant. "Then why would you apologise to me? About the killing and feeding and stuff?"  
  
He sighed. "Do you want a drink, then?"  
  
Her drink came much quicker this time. In fact, the two girls seemed to fight over who got to bring the coke over. The American won, and earned a "Thank you, Sarah." and a wink from her boss. Sarah smiled at Spike, but was silent. It was as if she... respected him.  
  
Buffy renewed her inspection of Spike, trying to see a boss in him. Trying to see what was there. What was the same. What was different. Spike was looking at Buffy too. Not returning her forthright stare, but as he scanned the backpackers, his eyes kept coming to rest on who was in front of him.  
  
Finally, Buffy had to speak. She didn't want to start with the melodrama, so she went with a proven conversation starter. Flattery. "I like your hair like that."  
  
And her words shocked him again, but this time, his face fell into one of those amazed smiles he did so well, before he quickly pulled it back. Still, it was like his brain was pulsing behind the badly maintained impassive facade- he blinked, he twitched, he opened and closed his mouth.  
  
Finally, awkwardly, "I thought you might want an apology from me because not being..... someone who made you happy is...It made me want to be someone else. I thought you might want an apology for adding to your problems."  
  
Oh god. She'd forgotten he could do that. Be halting, and unsure, and disarm her.  
  
But that had been there before. On the staircase in her mother's house. Just before and just after her death.  
  
And then he quickly morphed back into the ever-familiar asshole again, and left her fumbling for her weapons. "Although, I don't apologise for making fun of your Smiley Riley over and over again. That was just too much fun."  
  
Buffy was appalled, "Spike, Riley just died. I was just at his funeral. Don't you have any respect..ok, that's a stupid question."  
  
"My death never stopped you criticizing me, did it? So don't try pulling a shocked Miss Manners act on me, love." Buffy tried for haughtily exasperated, she really did. But she'd forgotten the intensity of being near him. The crowd of contradictory feelings she'd tried to avoid. The way they were all heightened. He was such a caricature, and every thing felt exaggerated around him- more tragic, or funnier, or better or worse.  
  
"Speaking of criticism, how's your besotted follower doing? There was a program on about semi trained monkeys the other week, and naturally, I thought of him.". At Buffy's confused look, Spike, rolling his eyes, was forced to clarify, "Xander, slayer. I'm talking about the whelp."  
  
"Oh...hey! He is not... besotted with me!"  
  
"But, we're agreed on the semi-trained monkey bit?" He was laughing at her, at her expression, at her sudden loss of words.  
  
"That was so lame. Shut up, Spike."  
  
"Oh, slayer, its been too long since I'd heard that. I'd almost forgotten the perfect combination of contempt and confusion you achieve with that expression."  
  
To stop any further laughter at her expense, she opted to keep talking.  
  
"Actually, I think Xander's kinda...besotted... with someone else."  
  
"Someone new? Don't tell me one of Inbreeders Anonymous has actually decided to try and bed someone they didn't know at high school." "Hey, I've slept with a few guys I didn't know while I was at high school."  
  
And he was laughing at her again.  
  
"Shut up Spike" He was only laughing harder.  
  
A woman sashayed over. Took one look at Buffy sitting across the table from him, and deflated a little. Not a lot, but a little. "It's one of those weeks, is it William?"  
  
"Afraid so, pet. Won't always be one of these weeks, though. Sarah will give you the run down." The woman accepted this, nodded at Buffy, and walked over to the bar, onto which she lifted a briefcase.  
  
"Who was that?"  
  
"She works for the beer supplier. She's here every few weeks."  
  
Buffy was suspicious. What sort of salesperson comes in just before midnight?  
  
"She looks like she wants to do more than... supply your beer."  
  
That smirk. Eyebrows ascending. And hello to you, Mr 1998 era William the Bloody. "She does.".  
  
She decided to call his inflated ego's bluff. "Like what, Spike? Does she wholesale the crap orange juice too?"  
  
"Nah. We just fuck occasionally. And I know I've got to do something about the OJ. Its the pips, isn't it?"  
  
Buffy'd known, from the second the woman had spoken to Spike, that she'd been disappointed about the lack of sex that Buffy's presence indicated. But then he'd said it, so casual and crude, and suddenly Buffy really knew, and she just started. 


	5. Chapter 5

He caught her near the end of the path he'd directed her to earlier. She'd had a vague plan of sitting on the deserted beach, trying to siphon out this fury by throwing rocks into the sea or building sand castles and then jumping on them or doing something. Instead Buffy stood facing Spike at the intersection of the sand path and the unsealed town drag. He'd clasped a hand over her shoulder to stop her escape when he'd caught her, but let go quickly. She could've left. She could've gone and built sand castles or hid in her room or danced with the backpackers to Loveshack, which she could hear beginning to play in the bar, even from here. But she stood there, with Spike, in the open air,trying hard to hear the ocean through the jungle, hoping the sounds would calm her. She was going to fight with him. Buffy was good at fighting with Spike. And so she began again.  
  
"What happened, in the bathroom that night, it doesn't matter to you at all, does it?"  
  
Wow. Almost a knock out, first punch. There was a term for that, wasn't there? But no, he was recovering. He looked ill, and shocked, and small, but he was going to engage with the blow.  
  
"God Buffy, my whole life now is about what happened in that bathroom."  
  
"Then how come you can have sex with that girl?" She threw him into absolute confusion with that.  
  
"What the hell does that have to do with anything? Do you think.... I'm not sufficiently affected until I decide to never screw again in penance? I can't lose my soul Buffy, from the moment of happiness clause. Shit. You know this. Your whole life's about that lack of clause."  
  
Her mouth kept trying to form words in reply to this, trying to say it right. Finally she just gave up, and said it wrong. "I thought that after what happened sex wouldn't be something you would ... I thought you wouldn't want to go back there. I mean with the soul... I thought there'd be guilt."  
  
And he gave her one of his looks, the questioning one that meant he already knew her answer, he just wanted to make her hear herself say it. "And so this is all about sex, is it love?"  
  
She looked away. 18 months of considering, and she wanted to get this right, "Spike, I think every thing that happens between us is at least partly about sex. And I think that's why what happened in the bathroom happened."  
  
She surprised him with that. He'd so clearly positioned himself as emotionally superior.  
  
She loved that she surprised him. Surprising him- it always struck her as something to be proud of, and relieved the anger a bit, made her feel better. So much better that she almost spared him. Almost.  
  
"But what you did was so wrong.I mean, you used to tell me about your great all consuming burning passion, like it was all gothic and tragic and precious, and then we turned into these characters out of some cheesy health class date rape video. What happened in the bathroom was so common, Spike.You made us something disgusting even according to your warped vampire morals." They still stood facing at the junction. She expected him to pounce on what she'd said, deny it, or be distraught.  
  
Instead he surprised her, because he liked to do that too. He smiled at her. Wistfully.  
  
"You know the worst thing about love in books and poetry, slayer? It's so fucking chaste. Everyone always absconds from the touch of all others as a sign of their devotion. And they wonder why it always ends badly. They never realise, it's because with their balls such a charming shade of blue, they can't think straight." Now the smile was apologetic. "I'll love you forever, slayer, but I can't love you like I did and not be with you. I have to make it a bit less perfect to be able to stand it."  
  
Now Buffy felt some tears. Because being adored by your enemy was terrifying, and made everything harder. Because having him devoted to you could be like the ground beneath your feet. And part of it was over.  
  
"So, you cheat on me with this girl?"  
  
He rolled his eyes, and it relaxed things. A tiny bit. "No slayer. I know this will be hard for you to process, but it's not really about you, pet. It's about me. I can't just love and hate anymore. This soul- everything's not black and white. Some things still are- I still love you, and I still love killing demons, and I still love blood, but now- there are colours. I like running the bar. I like girls. I like alot of them. I like sex. And doing stuff I like, siphons some of the other stuff off. Makes it bearable."  
  
"What about the girls, Spike? Do they have anything to say in this?" He grins, and the tension moves further away, and her remaining anger softens into annoyance.  
  
"Well normally they're saying, oh, you're the best lay ever, Spike.."  
  
"Spike. You know that's so not what I meant."  
  
His face quirked, but he relented. "They all know it's a one time, or at least not permanent thing. Most of them are travelers, who'll never be here again. And they all leave my bed smiling. Grinning, actually. When they can walk." Pause, and he examined her face, and she knew he was going to be bad. "Its not quite helping the helpless, I suppose. More helping the willing."  
  
She shook her head at his cockiness. He was so vulgar.  
  
"So that's you Spike. Casually screwing towards redemption"  
  
"Just sharing the joy, love. Making the world a better place, one pussy at a time."  
  
"Gross, Spike. That's just gross." 


	6. Chapter 6

They walked back to the bar. They passed backpackers struggling drunkenly towards the boarding houses further down the street. There was so much to think and feel and it was all competing within Buffy for attention.  
  
Jealousy won.  
  
"Is the beer salesgirl going to be staying at the bar tonight?"  
  
"Um, I don't know. Probably. It's a long drive back to the city."  
  
"Where's she going to sleep?"  
  
"In a bed, I expect slayer. What are you getting at?"  
  
"Whose bed?"  
  
"Well, probably the one in the room next to yours. Don't worry, every room has its own en suite."  
  
"Is that your bed?"  
  
And he understood. "Slayer, I may be trying to play Mr In-Control-of-my Feelings, but I think your presence in the bar- in the country, for that matter- will leave me a little preoccupied tonight."  
  
Good, Buffy thought. Instead of saying that aloud, she touched his arm to stop his stride, looked up at him, settled her mouth into an expectant pout, and waited for him to come to her.  
  
And oh yeah, there he was, personal space be damned. Her breath started to clatter. Where to look- eyes, lips, eyes lips. Lips. For sure. His eyes were closing anyway. Must close her own eyes. Her hands wanted to go to his face. Palms sitting in his cheek's hollow, fingers stretching into the beginning of his dark hair line. She didn't have to tilt her head back - he was little, from the time before compulsory milk in the cafeteria. Little boys didnÕt grow up so big back then. More proof that Angel was the exception to every rule.  
  
Angel. She knew she was forgetting something.  
  
She stepped back, just as he was about to really ruin her lip gloss. He kind of stumbled- he'd been ready to grasp onto her, like he always did when they kissed. He opened his eyes, and his mouth was already spewing forth the accusations, because he kind of thought he could goad her into kissing him. Come to think, he had quite a bit of past evidence to back that presumption up.  
  
Buffy let him rant. He was good at it. She wasn't listening though. She was thinking.  
  
Finally, he ran out of incisive things to say about her animal instincts, and there was silence.  
  
She tried to say what she'd been thinking. It wasn't easy, but she tried.  
  
"Kissing you," she began.  
  
"Which you're not going to do, because it would be wrong, right, slayer?" Apparently the soul didn't have much effect on the sarcasm.  
  
"Shut up Spike. Kissing you...its not like kissing anyone else." Buffy decided to stop the coming interruption before it started, "And you're not that extraordinary a kisser, so don't take it that way. But kissing you.. its not about expressing love and affection."  
  
He considered this for a moment. It'd thrown him. He wasn't ready to give up, though. "Maybe not love and affection as you know it, pet."  
  
She smiled absently at that, but her mind had already moved on. "Angel and I... I used to go to him to feel safe. Of course, it turned out we weren't safe, and, well, you saw the wackiness that ensued there, but that's still what I feel when I'm with him. Like I'm meant to be there. And I don't think I'll ever stop feeling that way."  
  
Buffy expected Spike to look destroyed at that, and he did, but he looked resigned, as well.  
  
"I'll never be at peace with you. I'll always doubt what I feel for you. And you'll always doubt what I feel for you. You aggravate me Spike. You make me ask who I am and why I'm doing something and what do I feel. I can never just be with you. You make me want to prove that I'm smarter than you, a better fighter, more moral, more adventurous. Part of us will always be enemies."  
  
Spike cocked his eyebrows at that.  
  
"I know, you've fought beside me, been tortured by a hell god for my family, yada yada yada. But that's not what I mean. Who we are, together, we're, like immediate. We don't feel like family. Kissing you... when I kiss Angel, it's all about matching up, uniting. Kissing you is about not matching up, and, she paused to laugh at her next thought, rubbing our differences up against each other. It's so different. And it felt good. It feels good. But it's something I never knew I wanted".  
  
Silence. There was never silence with him before. Her face screwed up in confusion. He saw it, and put up a hand, asking for a pause.  
  
"Wait a second love, I'm digesting something here"  
  
"Because I admitted what I felt about you?"  
  
He shook his head."You said you kiss Angel because he feels like family. Someone's still searching for that elusive father figure, aren't they?". And it was them. It was Buffy with Spike. She was pissed and she wants to kiss him.  
  
"That's so not what I meant, asshole. She paused. Are you going to keep sleeping with all those girls?"  
  
"Are you going to keep shagging Angel?"  
  
"Forever, if I could." She almost poked her tongue out with that. Buffy knew it was wrong to unnecessarily hurt Spike. But she was just so good at it.  
  
He rolled his eyes, and looked ready to retort, when his mood suddenly changed.  
  
"Are you happy, Buffy?"  
  
She hated that question. It was such an Oprah question. But she nodded, because, as far as she could tell, it was true. He deflated at her answer. And started to pace around the small space. And lit a cigarette. All movement, all the time.  
  
"That's meant to be enough. But it's not. I don't want you to be happy with him. I want you to be happy with me."  
  
And suddenly, relieving his hurt was important- clearing those blue eyes, unfolding the pained expression. "If it makes you feel any better, Dawn and Angel don't get on. He tries, but I heard her call him tall dark and broody once to his face."  
  
He smiled. "Yeah, she told me about that."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, you know, emailed me about it."  
  
"Why would Dawn be emailing you? She hates you?"  
  
"She hates failing history more." Buffy just looked confused. He gave in. He always gave in. Or she always made him give in.  
  
"The bit rang me once she found out where I'd been exiled to. She wanted me to know exactly how big an evil bastard I was. Anyway, I think she figured the best way to keep me in constant pain was to send email updates on the Buffy and Angel romance, version 3.0. And then she kind of decided she'd like to use me while abusing me, so I help her with some of her papers and such."  
  
Buffy decided to question the least bewildering part of this. "You have a computer?"  
  
"Well, the bar has a computer. Online banking and all that. What'd you think, your Angel dispenses his orders to me through breathy little phone calls?"  
  
The "your Angel" cost him. It came from the part of him that knew he had to be hopeless, accept Buffy with Angel. But it was such a small part of him. Buffy felt she had to clarify again, justify them not being together again.  
  
"I owe it to myself to be with him, Spike. I need him to be mine. I can't leave me and Angel unfinished."  
  
"And you don't want it to finish."  
  
She thought for a long moment. It was so insane, to want to give Spike hope. It would only make things harder. She wasn't sure there was any hope. But to say to him she never wanted to kiss him again was such a lie.  
  
Buffy chose silence.  
  
It didn't last long, because it was Spike's nature to fill silence. "Time for beddie-byes, then, slayer?"  
  
They'd arrived at the bar. She looked at him in panic. He sighed. "Your beddie-byes. By yourself. In your room. The one with the bleeding en suite."  
  
Oh. "Unless, you want company, slayer?" Buffy couldn't help it. She smiled, in relief.  
  
"Will I see you before I leave?"  
  
He nodded."Downstairs, in the bar. In the morning." 


	7. Chapter 7

"Well, bye."  
  
"See ya"  
  
But they'd never say goodbye so easily.  
  
"What are you going to tell Angel?"  
  
"What do you mean?" She was playing him. Despite his apparent exasperation, she knew he loved it- the sass and the teasing, replacing their last few meetings earnestness and disgust.  
  
"You know what I mean. About what we talked about."  
  
"I'll tell him what he needs to know." She smiled sweetly at him.  
  
He rolled his eyes, and spread his arms in an appeal to the gods. "Oh, heaven save me from the slayer attempting to be enigmatic." He lowered his head to look her in the eye."I always liked you best when I could tell everything you were feeling with just a look, pet."  
  
"I thought you could always tell what I was feeling with just a look, Spike?" She copied the way he'd stressed the words.  
  
"Nah... well, I liked to think I could." His mood suddenly turned, and his voice lowered, and the tone became confessional. "Buffy, that's why what happened happened. Because I didn't know for sure what you were feeling, and I couldn't believe what you were telling me was the truth, I thought if I could...."  
  
"What? What did you think you could do" Her voice was hard, and soft, just as she loved and hated. She knew they hadn't said enough last night, but she didn't want this conversation. He was so intense, and the conversation would trawl everything she'd tried to fix these last months. Make it all new again.  
  
"I knew sex with me made you feel good, physically. I thought.... have you ever seen Gone with the Wind?"  
  
Buffy nodded. It was all she could do. She could tell this was hard for him, but, fuck, this was hard for her, too. And now he wanted to test her cinematic knowledge.  
  
"Well, you know the scene, where Scarlett walks into the dining room for a drink, and Rhett's already there, drunk, and he sweeps her up the stairs and basically forces himself on her? And the next morning she's at least a little bit in love with him? I thought it might be a bit like that. That you know, you really did want me, that you'd get into it after a while, and then everything could be... not back the way it was, but better than that. That we'd be together."  
  
She studied him for a second, trying to process all the emotions his speech has roused. Anger came first, and it fueled her reply. "So what happened in the bathroom, when you tried to rape me, Spike, was actually my fault for not sharing my every emotion with you, and a movie's fault for giving you some twisted romantic imagery."  
  
"Fuck, if that was what I thought, slayer, then to fix the whole mess I would have enrolled you in psychotherapy and written a strongly worded letter to the film's distributors. I know it's my fault. I went and got me and your Angel a soul because of it, didn't I?"  
  
Something was suddenly confirmed for Buffy. "That's why you went to Angel. So he could get the soul for keeps and we could be together."  
  
Spike was silent, so Buffy heard the car that would take her to the airport pull up out the front. His face was twisted in a way that told her he wanted to answer her using sarcasm or facetiousness. Her look quietened him, and after a pause he instead choose:  
  
"There was so much guilt straight after I got the soul. I had to do something to relieve it. And as much as I will always love you, as much as everything in my life is a reaction to something you've said or done or wanted..." He stopped. He'd been building to some kind of crescendo, but his grandeur had deserted him. He began again, quietly and quickly, looking through the window's slats at her waiting car and driver. "I went to get the soul so you'd love me. And once I got the soul, I realised turning up on your doorstep, making you responsible for what I am now, it's just finishing what I started in the bathroom. Forcing what I want out of you. The only way I could relieve any of the guilt, that I could begin to move anywhere, was to give you something I knew you wanted. Or, at least, make it available for you. What you and him did with what I told him was up to you."  
  
She thought, considered for a long time "I don't think the two balance each other out, Spike. I don't think helping Angel and I find a way to be together cancels out what happened in the bathroom.". She paused to think some more, and he interrupted her, the way she'd known he would.  
  
"The world doesn't work-"  
  
"Shut up, Spike! Jeez. I was getting there on my own. Can't I have big emotional breakthroughs without you constantly butting in? What I was going to say, is it changes who you are."  
  
"Well, duh, slayer."  
  
She sighed and picked up her bag. "I wouldn't have felt responsible for you if you'd come back to Sunnydale with the soul. I'm very willing to let you take the responsibility for every stupid, idiotic thing you do."  
  
"Slayer, I know you. You're the planet's most intriguing mix of compassion and self-obsession."  
  
She turned towards the exit, trying to hide her grin at his hyperbole. "Spike, why do you always have to be so fucking dramatic? Don't you have any restraint at all, any sense of proportion?"  
  
"Well...no, slayer. I'd have thought that would be obvious by now." She was at the swinging doors now. The near end of the conversation made her reckless.Hope's never really bad, right?  
  
"Good. Don't ever change that, ok? And don't dye your hair. I like it this way." 


End file.
